More incentives to walk

Oh Monday! Today was spent at the Medical Towers sitting through orientation. I was running late and all I could see as I walked in the room was coffee! And the orientation leader came to talk to me and I was just going through the motions of talking without even looking up to look at the guy, who was warning me that I needed a lot of coffee to get me through orientation. Little did I know that the guy was my friend Matt (seen in this post, except without the facial hair). It was a pleasant surprise.
Anyways, among all the forms and the pamphlets was two that provided incentives to walk.
First, parking at UAB for employees costs $50 a month (the last time I paid for student parking, it was $100 a year).
Second, was Commute Smart: a program that rewards you for taking cleaner alternatives to work. For the first 90 days that I am in the program, I get $1 for every day that I take a cleaner alternative to work (in my case, if I walk to work), up to $70. After the 90 day period, I will be eligible for a $25 gift card every three months. That's a pretty good incentive! I save on parking and gas, plus get some $ back. I signed up a few minutes ago.

Yes, the summer will be a pain, but we'll deal with that when we get there.

Project list

Projects that I'm working on:

My bedroom:

Get new curtains - I still have to sew the backing to my curtains since I'm hoping that a thicker curtain will help with cooling costs in the summer 
Rearrange furniture
Organize paperwork
Shred  and file documents

Closet room:

Go through clothes and put clothes in the donation box
Donate the donation box

Pantry:

Replenish pantry
Organize pantry

Kitchen:

Organize kitchen - new set of Sterilite drawers from Walmart, I love you (plus made in the USA)
Take glass to the recycling center

Entryway (downstairs):

Organize shoes - done! Thanks to a new hanging shoe organizer
Re-do curtains

Entryway (upstairs):

Shred documents
Organize documents
Clean out our junk boxes
New system for notes - courtesy of a new dry erase board
Add shelf back to the leaning ladder

Living room:

Organize coffee table compartments
Find a corner for shopping lists, coupons, bills, etc... (financial center)
Take down football velcro board
Organize the appliance closet

Crafts:

Frame Packer stocks
Frame pictures of Packer game
Frame portrait pictures
Wedding invitations
Cut glass bottles (preferably before I go to the recycling center)

Garden:

Throw away old plants
Clean pots and planters
Start new seedlings

So far all my organizing/decorating needs have only required two new pieces of furniture (the plastic drawer thingy for the kitchen, and a small bookshelf for my room). I'm keeping my receipts so that I can share my budget.

I'll post pictures when I'm done with each room/part of the house. Tom's room doesn't get a makeover. I have plans for his room and I will share those with you once I tell him about them :)

Oh February!

For February, I'm
Excited: about my new job that starts today!
Worried: about my new job and Grandma Mae
Watching: Big Bang Theory re-runs and Revenge
Reading: The newspaper? Science papers? Maybe I'll be good and read Anthony Bourdain's first book
Listening: CCR
Creating: Pinterest things! Trying out various crafts that we might incorporate in the wedding 
Cooking: More veggies!
Loving: the nice weather
Hoping: that my new seeds will grow and my garden will be lovely once again

Tasty Tuesday

What happens when I'm craving veggies but Tom wants soup? Broccoli soup, with a staple in our house, grilled cheese.  In this case, grilled ham and cheese.

Roasted broccoli and pureed with a boiled potato, stock (I used chicken since I didn't have vegetable stock), onion, and I think garlic. Strain.

Recap

I finally took care of the garden, removing all the dead plants from winter and found a nice surprise:

This was from the nut (probably a pecan) that a squirrel planted a year ago and had started to sprout.  I guess over time it established roots. This year, it got its own planter.

We had craft night at Do It Yourself Crafts in Homewood; A glass fusing class, and you bring your own wine/beer. We had fun. I can't wait to see our finished art!

On Saturday, Tom and I went to Ozan Vineyard since I had a Groupon for a wine tasting that was about to expire. The vineyard is a strong contender for the wedding.

My vacation is nearly over. My last experiment did not work out the way we planned. Oh well! I reviewed a second manuscript in two months. I start my new position on Wednesday.

Craft-ish

Grace had mentioned Christmas letters as a tradition to catch up with family and friends. Our conversation was the inspiration for this project.
I took 12 postcards depicting various scenes from Washington DC (that's where Grace is), added stamps (see note), and used the address labels that I receive as advertising from non-profits (this group is from WWF). I wrapped the postcard bundles, included a note about the project, and mailed the whole thing to Grace. The idea is that each month, Grace will write what she is excited about, hoping for, worried about, loving, listening to, etc... (this part was inspired by Anne B's posts) and drop it in the mail. On my side, at the beginning of the month, I will post the same list on the blog, making this project two-way. It's one more way to keep in touch with friends that live further away than we would want.

Notes:
If you don't know this, I love getting mail. Cards, letters, etc... I am hoping that my friends who are abroad (Angie, this applies to you) are reading this and will send me postcards from --insert country name here--. If only there was universal postage...
Postcards were from Zazzle. Next time, when I'm in Dallas or Nashville, I will pick up postcards from there instead of doing Zazzle.
I've had this idea for a while, but was waiting for the USPS postage to go up so I could use one stamp instead of 2 or 3, which would decrease writing space. The post office didn't have the new postcard stamps, so I had to settle for the old ones and 4 cent stamps (they were also out of the 3 cent stamp).
If this works well, guess what the out-of-town BFFs are getting at Christmas this year?!! :)

Tasty Tuesday

Build-your-own taco for dinner on Sunday: ground turkey with home made taco seasoning, diced tomatoes, shredded lettuce, sliced olives, diced onions, and shredded cheese.

Happy Chinese New Year

Happy Chinese New Year!
My sister taught me to say it in mandarin: xin nian kuai le (In Mauritian Chinese: Kung Chee Fat Choy)
Hope that the year of the Dragon brings you happiness and prosperity.

Tom and I went to Mr. Chen's for dinner and had a very nice meal. Tom was more adventurous, ordering spicy pig ear as appetizer and the "boiled beef in hot oil". I had steamed dumplings and Kung Pao shrimp. Oh it was so good. I also set a Chinese New Year resolution: for the next Chinese new year celebration, I will make a variety of dumplings, dim sum style. Also, we want to institute an ethnic food day: once a month, try a new ethnic restaurant. While this wasn't our first visit to Mr. Chen's, we will count this as the first month. Ideas for the other places: Iguana Grill; the new Indian place on Hwy 280; some Japanese grill; Cafe de Paris; etc... Any suggestions?

Sunny Sunday

Well, it's not really sunny today. We may even get a storm tonight. But Sunny Sunday refers to a gardening post. I still haven't cleaned the balcony garden since we got back in town about three weeks ago. More on this later. I digress. Somehow we forgot to check the mail yesterday, so this morning when I went to pick up the Sunday paper, I noticed that my Burpee plants and seeds catalog came in. I spent a few hours some time browsing. I have ideas. I nearly grabbed my marker. Then I paused, and made a deal with myself: I work on my review article for 3 hours today, then choose my seeds and do some garden planning.

Sweet memories

Right before leaving town for the winter holidays, I was running around trying to finish up all of our shopping. We wanted to keep our Xmas gifts (mostly) local. I had found Alabama Goods (http://alabamagoods.com/) online and decided to go there. It is located in the neat Homewood Downtown Strip, which I had never walked in the 6 years that I have been in Birmingham. Here comes the cheesy part: Tom came with me as we strolled the strip in the early evening. We walked hand in hand, and he was very supportive of me checking out all the stores. It was such a sweet moment for us, turning something so banal into something romantic-ish.

As a side note, this is how we found a signed copy of Night Night Birmingham (http://www.mynightnight.com/2011/05/night-night-birmingham.html), a kids book written by a local, and that talks about features of the town. Great gift for Baby Julia.